To Serve the Gods: Whitevale

Literally falling into the pitch-black furnace room, the PC’s find a team of tieflings, accompanied by some skeletal minions. They dispatch this new threat with little injury and manage to capture one, albeit allowing one to escape. The large furnace in the back of the room was not quite what it seemed: it opened up into a larger tunnel, which led into an enormous empty cavern. Walking up out of this new cave complex, they find Another World

The captured tiefling does not easily relinquish information, but does tell the dwarves that he works for the Raven Queen. He does not talk about his orders, but he does say that he dislikes “this crummy plane,” and wants nothing more than to go home. He mentions two names: the lieutenant Dajanni and the corporal Nierdhar, who the party killed just now.

Going on, turning another corner, the party finds a vast room. There is a raised dais in the center, upon which is an Obsidian Pillar that extends into the ceiling. Also on the dais (and around it) is a large pile of coinage and a chest. As the party rushes to take this treasure, a white dragon swoops down, icing the doorways over and attacking these intruders.

Fighting valiantly, the party brings down the rather-clumsy dragon. As it collapses near the pillar, it’s blood begins to seep up the stonework. The pillar glows with an inner light, which gets brighter and brighter, blinding the party and causing them to blackout.

Multi-session Update

I’ve been lax in updating every week, so here’s what happened so far:

After having unleashed the water in the underground temple, the party traveled back home, where they noticed the farmlands flooded. The town’s wells, it’s source of water, had been gushing out of control since the party left the temple. It’s obvious the two events are connected; however, the party puts this aside to assist their families and other villagers in dealing with the flood. Later that night, when the wells return to a normal state, the party reports to Joseph about their luck. He is infuriated upon hearing about the party opening the door and causing this epidemic. He takes the party off the mission and puts them back on normal watch duty.

The party becomes equally angry at Rinnon. Fagdol, tired of putting up with a brash human leader, attempts to raise enough dwarven support to try to leave Whitevale, but the rest of the community disagrees: to leave their only-known home for an uncertain future is not something the established families want. Even her husband disagrees with this decision. Howard (or was that Horace?) attempts to get translated a book he found in the temple. He hands it off to Fenry Canyskell, an amateur scribe and linguist near Andothel. A day later, he find that Rinnon’s personal soldiers have confiscated the book, citing it as being dangerous. The elves ask their family about temple ruins in the wilderness, and find out that while ruins do exist, none have been explored. However, Enummi was told that one of these temples burned to the ground a few years ago. Ariphas plans to take on the goblin encampment by himself, Rinnon be damned.

It’s when he begins to leave three days later, early in the morning to prevent Rinnon’s guards from stopping him, that a large wave of goblinoids begin to attack the city. Ariphas immediately joins the initial wave of dwarven resistance, backing him up with his invocations. The rest of the party, woken from their sleep, runs to the center of town to receive orders from one of Rinnon’s lieutenant. The eladrin soldier tells them to fight off the orcs that are raiding the village.

The party defeats such a team, as they see a white dragon fly overheard and a pillar of smoke come from the center of town, near Rinnon’s office. Heading back, they find that the orcs they fought were only a diversion, another group having plundered Rinnon’s office. Joseph, wounded from the battle, tells the party that the attack was led by Balthasar, who is working with demonic forces.

As the next session began, the protector-general, realizing how deeply insulted the party was at his earlier outburst, apologizes and tells them the source of his anger. Underneath the village, there is an ancient artifact that radiates positive energy and keeps Whitevale shielded from harm. While this magic field cannot protect against such mundane threats as orcs and goblins, it should be able to stand up against things like dragons and demons. The presence of the white dragon earlier that morning begins to worry Rinnon greatly. He is worried that Balthasar is tampering with the ancient artifact buried deep within the temple complex and that the dragonborn will literally unleash hell upon Whitevale if the focus is removed. He asks them to investigate further and stop Balthasar, whatever his purpose is.

The party agrees that their first course of action will be to investigate the waterfall goblin encampment, which they found to be guarded only by a small group of hobgoblins. Making short work of the monsters, the PC’s find a small treasure room guarded by a magic trap: energy bolts would fire at anyone who approached the chest and books left behind. Howard and Ariphas use their teleportation abilities to quickly pull the treasure out of the trap’s area. Aside from some treasure, they find what appears to be Balthasar’s journal: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dcd98qvc_58dm7dgjd6&hl=en

Unsure what to make of Balthasar’s (or even Rinnon’s) intentions, the PC’s head to the temple, and are attacked by a wolf pack on the way there. At the temple, they find a goblin encampment, but there are no goblins in sight. Inside the secret room going into the drainage room, they find an abandoned goblin female. She appears to be both pregnant and sick. Brofist, in typical dwarven fashion, kills her. At the drainage room, they find more signs of goblin infestation, but ignore this as they continue past the vampiric door.

The door opens up into a long hallway, covered in dark-green tiles from ceiling to floor. The hallway end abruptly by a wall made of overlapping sheets of metal. What appears to be a bit of dirt or dried blood on the metal wall is indeed a symbol, which Howard appears to recognize, though he doesn’t give much information. Enummi discovers a secret door in the northern wall of the hallway, which the party opens to find a room full of bugbears!

Dispatching most of the creatures (leaving at least two to escape), the party finds the room to be covered in pipes and valves, several of which have labels in the ancient language the party still cannot read. In the corner, Howard finds a small locker, in which a thin, weak-looking hobgoblin is hiding. He tells this party his name is Vig, of the proud Breimend-dyn clan. The bugbears that the party just dispatched had kidnapped him, hoping he could read the labels in the room; upon discovering he could not, they were going to kill him. As the party showed up, Vig quickly hid inside the locker. Distrustful of the hobgoblin, but not wanting to kill him, the party forces him to tag along as they explore.

They find a small room adjacent to the “pipe room,” which is full of tools other equipment. It also contains a small collapse, which has buried at least one person. The party found nothing interesting in this room, so they kept going, noticing a nasty stench.

Turning a corner, they hear the piercing sound of scraping metal ahead. Investigating, they come across a set of black, iron double doors. Hearning nothing inside, Howard opens the door slightly to peek in, but it makes another loud screech. The door closes back on Howard, and he attempts to forcefully push it back open, initially failing. Trying again, this time with Brofist’s help, the doors swing open easily, and the two fall prone inside the room. The rest of the party notices the massive furnace in this room, which is full of humanoid corpses, and the tieflings very much alive in the room, drawing their weapons.

Drainage

The animated statues have left a hole in the temple wall, creating an entrance for the party to descend down into the ruins. Several demonic reliefs are carved into the walls, and Enummi finds a secret room built behind one of these. Creating an entrance into this room, the PC’s enter to find a long-dead corpse lying in moldy bed. Across from the corpse is an old chest, which Howard breaks open. He finds an old book (similar to a journal), and a smaller box inside. He takes the book without allowing the rest of the party to see it, and Dara ends up taking the smaller chest, which contains two pieces of chalk.

Beyond the hallway, the floor levels out into a wider room, in which several canals and gutters are built into the floor. The party immediately notices three statues in the room, from which phantasmal warriors emerge. At the same time, three corpses rise from the far side of the room, and small bits of detritus and bone animate from the waters.

The party defeats the undead after a prolonged and difficult combat. They immediately notice the large, ornate door built into the far wall, which boasts several gemstones and a mouth-like handle. Also, a ghost appears in front of the party, asking them for help. He states that he does not remember who he was in life, only that his lover has been trapped on the other side of this door. He explains that the vampiric nature of the door will sap some energy from the opener, and, being undead, he cannot open it. Brofist immediately comes to his aid and opens the door. The door bursts open and water fills the room. The dwarves attempt to explore further into the dungeon underwater, but do not find much before they have to turn back for air. As the party leaves the now-flooded temple for home, they see a nearby well overflowing with water, presumably from the flood underneath.

Reading the Map

The party, unable to read the goblin’s map, travels back to town to attempt to get it translated and rest for the night. They find Andothel, an eladrin mapmaker, who has made most of the maps for the village. He agrees to interpret their map, by matching it up with his own maps to find where it is. After several hours of interpretation, he informs them that it is a crudely-drawn version of the northern woods, close to where the party was traveling. He points out the clearing they fought the goblins in, as well as two points titled “Waterfall” and “Temple.”

The party decides to travel first to the Waterfall. Following the river Northwest, they do indeed find a small waterfall, which the goblin tribes have made into a camp. The place is crawling with orcs and goblins, with many coming and going from a cave behind the waterfall. The party instantly realizes they are outnumbered and decides not to attack the camp head-on. Instead, Dara uses an animal messenger to inform Rinnon about the camp, while Fagdol decides to walk back to inform him personally. Rinnon informs the dwarven matron that he will prepare the town’s defenses and tells her to continue investigating with the party.

As she walks back, the rest of the party witnesses a haggard goblin team enter the camp. These new creatures have apparently seen recent combat, and are shaken. The party decides to investigate the Temple area. Incidentally, the goblin party’s track seem to be going opposite the PC’s path. Also, about halfway to their destination, they find a goblin corpse. The cause of death seems to be heavy bludgeoning wounds.

The party arrives at its destination and finds some ruins of what appears to be a temple to an ancient evil deity. The characters walk into the ruins and see a series of statues carved into a wall. The statues promptly animate and attack the party, which deftly handles the golems with little problem.

Onset of Adventure

Character creation finished, with Alex joining the party temporarily, as Elven Ranger Andor.

Party is summoned to Protector-General Joseph Rinnon’s office. As members of the militia, it is time for them to form a band to better serve the village. Their first mission as a band is given to them:

Their primary objective is to investigate the increased goblinoid activity near the fringes of the farmlands and impede goblinoid expansion into the village.

As a secondary objective, they should look into the whereabouts of the dragonborn marshal Balthasar, or the circumstances of his death.

Rinnon reminds the party that six months ago, his son, John Rinnon took his band into the Northern Woods on a mission, but also disappeared. The Protector-General is not sure if this is related to Balthasar’s absence, but offers the comparison to the party nonetheless.

The party gathers their things and begins traveling into the northern woods. They track a small goblin scout party into a clearing. Setting up tactically, they attack the goblins and kill all but one of them, which escapes. The party finds a dingy map on one of the goblins, which they cannot interpret.